Red Hat Product President Talks OpenStack, Public Cloud

Paul Cormier, RedHat EVP and president of the technologies and products group at the company called the changes of computing infrastructure today the most significant he's seen in 25 years.

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Cloud computing is driving many disruptions to traditional technology business models these days, and open source technology is a big part of it. Through participation in initiatives such as OpenStack as well as its own deep roots with Linux, Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT) has been an open source trail blazer. To get a better sense of both the trends in cloud computing and the momentum behind public cloud migrations, we spoke with Paul Cormier EVP at Red Hat and president of the companies technologies and products division. Here's what he had to say about his philosophy of open source and the state of the market today.

"Open" goes beyond technology.

Cormier said a common misconception in the market is that open cloud computing starts and ends with technology, which is not entirely the case. An open cloud computing company starts with a culture of openness in the company itself.

"Everything we do is open, " he said. "I get pushed back from all levels of our organization. If someone thinks we are doing something wrong, I hear about it. Don't agree with me all the time. I want to hear your opinion."

And the openness also extends to customers. Cormier advocates for transparency with customers as well, including when it comes to pricing models, he said.

Migrate when you are ready, not before.

Cormier said that customers may not feel the immediate need to move their workloads to the public cloud. That's ok. There is no rush.

"Customers want to move their workload to a public cloud when they can over time, not tomorrow," he said. "It's a common misconception."

Rather than pushing customers into the cloud, Cormier recommended a more comfortable approach. When they are ready to dip their toes in, an open hybrid cloud environment can be used to satisfy the needs of both the IT manager and the developer.

He said customers will want to have a common infrastructure to make sure that their workloads are running the same way they were before, without issues.

Innovation drives the cloud market.

Cormier pointed out that Red Hat is the second largest contributing company to OpenStack and has been with the project for two years. OpenStack marks a huge shift in the infrastructure and culture of computing.

"The change of the computer infrastructure that is happening right now is the most significant in the past 25 years," he said.